“You okay?” one of the players asked as they walked past him, but Barry didn’t answer. The little ones were walking beside them now, clutching Barry’s hand, and they turned their back on the town as a family and walked toward the mountain.
George had come to visit him once before, not long after Alan’d moved to Toronto. He couldn’t come without bringing down Elliot and Ferdinand, of course, but it was George’s idea to visit, that was clear from the moment they rang the bell of the slightly grotty apartment he’d moved into in the Annex, near the students who were barely older than him but seemed to belong to a different species.
They were about 16 by then, and fat as housecats, with the same sense of grace and inertia in their swinging bellies and wobbling chins.
Alan welcomed them in. Edward was wearing a pair of wool trousers pulled nearly up to his nipples and short suspenders that were taut over his sweat-stained white shirt. He was grinning fleshily, his hair damp with sweat and curled with the humidity.
He opened his mouth, and George’s voice emerged. “This place is… ” He stood with his mouth open, while inside him, George thought. “Incredible. I’d never… ” He closed his mouth, then opened it again. “Dreamed. What a… ”
Now Ed spoke. “Jesus, figure out what you’re going to say before you say it, willya? This is just plain—”
“Rude,” came Fede’s voice from his mouth.
“I’m sorry,” came George’s voice.
Ed was working on his suspenders, then unbuttoning his shirt and dropping his pants, so that he stood in grimy jockeys with his slick, tight, hairy belly before Alan. He tipped himself over, and then Alan was face-to-face with Freddy, who was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts with blue and white stripes. Freddy was scowling comically, and Alan hid a grin behind his hand.